Rethinking College

Given the high cost of higher education, it is tempting to evaluate different courses of study based solely on the return on investment they offer. However, this view neglects to consider the intangible benefits of a liberal arts education. Continue reading →

Rio Salado Community College doesn’t look much like a typical higher-education institution and it doesn’t act like one, either. With just 23 full-time faculty it serves more than 60,000 students, a disproportionate number of whom are low-income and attend part-time and online. And thanks to a barrage of support, it boasts a graduation rate four times that of comparable schools Continue reading →

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that anyone can take from anywhere in the world, are the future of higher education or the vehicle of its demise, depending on your perspective. Hari Sreenivasan talks with the man who first created the MOOC, professors who say they undermine the goals of a college education and others who see a way the college classroom and the new online format can be blended.Continue reading →

Even with a degree, many college graduates struggle to find work in the current economic climate. As tuition continues to rise, student debt appears to be a growing problem. All this raises the question- is a college degree worth the cost? Continue reading →

Advocates of online higher education hope this first-ever attempt by an elite institution to offer an entire computer-science graduate program in a MOOC-style format will prove the value of so-called massively open online courses. Continue reading →

Higher education is facing great pressure to change — both in the administrative offices and in the classrooms. Here are five less-visible developments on college campuses — with implications big and small for students and their families. Continue reading →

Through the recession, college tuition skyrocketed at public universities to make up for flagging state funding. Some students who borrowed to keep up with rising costs face crushing debt repayments. Hari Sreenivasan travelled to Wisconsin to report on one group hoping to turn the state’s student borrowers into a powerful voting bloc. Continue reading →

As the recession squeezed state budgets, the Obama administration made college affordability one of its signature issues, often pointing out that while average tuition at public universities rose 300 percent in the last 30 years, the average family’s income rose just 16 percent. Now that states are starting to turn the funding faucet back on for higher education, public pressure is helping drive efforts to clamp down on costs to students. Continue reading →